Fusion

The journey from Qingshan Town to Hashan Prefecture City is no short distance; even for Warren, riding at a gallop would take the better part of a day. Leian had assumed the people from the prefecture city wouldn't reach Qingshan Town until the following afternoon, but to his surprise, Warren and his party arrived before dawn the next day.

Judging by the timing, it was clear they had set out the very night they received the news.

The prefecture city had sent eight men in total. The leader was named Toby, who, according to the introductions, was a younger brother of the current city lord and a level 7 warrior to boot.

The remaining seven were guard knights, led by a captain named Wilson, who was also a level 7 warrior.

As soon as Toby arrived at the manor, he summoned Lev alone to inquire about the specific circumstances.

Facing the city lord's brother, Lev dared not withhold anything. He immediately described the sequence of events and the crime scene he had witnessed in great detail.

According to Lev, the first to discover the baron's corpse was a small merchant caravan from the prefecture. The caravan master often traveled to the countryside to collect goods and was considered an acquaintance of the baron.

Therefore, upon discovering the body of Laman, they had immediately notified the guard captain of the nearest town, Shage Town, who was none other than Lev himself.

By the time Lev arrived at the scene, many passersby had already gone through, but since they all knew the deceased were Baron Laman and another lord, Elvis, no one dared to move the bodies.

After listening to Lev's description of the scene and combining it with recent rumors regarding Elvis and his son, Toby easily deduced the truth behind the matter.

It was obvious that his own kinsman had coveted the wealth of the Cleo Family and chosen to ambush and kill Elvis in the middle of the night, only to be outmatched and slain in return. In the end, Elvis had been killed by a mysterious powerhouse of unknown identity who had slit his throat and made off with all the wealth.

So much time had passed that finding this mysterious powerhouse was unlikely. Furthermore, as the city lord's brother, Toby didn't care much for the wealth of a small-town lord, so he had no intention of putting effort into hunting down the culprit.

Moreover, the most troublesome issue right now wasn't finding the killer, but resolving the scandal of Laman attempting to rob and murder Elvis.

According to Lev's description, the matter was extremely straightforward; anyone who had seen the scene could guess the truth.

With so many people passing by the site, it was possible that everyone in Hashan Prefecture already knew that a baron of the Rachel Family had committed murder for profit in the dead of night.

This was just too damn embarrassing!

Toby considered it for a moment and decided that this matter absolutely could not be admitted. After some thought, he instructed Lev to announce to the public:

The truth was that Laman and Elvis had long been at odds, and the two had engaged in a private duel to the death, ultimately perishing together!

This explanation clearly wouldn't stand up to scrutiny, but whether outsiders believed it didn't matter. As long as everyone said so, it would eventually become the accepted truth over time.

Of course, this was only for the public. Internally, Toby felt nothing but disgust for Laman. He immediately acted on behalf of the city lord and confiscated half of Laman's territory—namely, four small towns.

The reason he didn't confiscate everything was that Laman's branch still had some connections in the prefecture city, making it difficult to go too far.

As for the title, that was granted by the emperor, and he had no authority to revoke it.

Time flew by. In the blink of an eye, half a month passed. As soon as Laman and his son were buried, Toby returned to the prefecture city, though Wilson, the guard captain, remained in Qingshi Town as the new commander.

Because four towns had been confiscated by Toby, a portion of the guard knights originating from those towns were dismissed.

To maintain control over the guard knights, Wilson reorganized the squads, ultimately retaining only three, though the number of men in each squad remained the same.

Since Leian and Lev were both level 6 warriors, their positions as captains were preserved. As for the final captain, it was a level 6 warrior Wilson had brought with him.

With this adjustment, Leian's status appeared unchanged, but he was dispatched to garrison a different town.

Baifeng Town, an extremely remote place with only half the population of Qingshi Town. As one of the three remaining towns in Laman's territory, Leian had been stationed here for a month.

Being sent to such a barren town was not only incredibly boring in daily life, but there was also no profit to be made. An average person would have likely lost patience long ago, but Leian was perfectly content.

As a guard captain, his duties were only three:

First, ensure the safety of the town; second, assist the tax collector in collecting taxes on time; third, safely escort the tax revenue to Qingshi Town at the end of each year.

The tasks seemed numerous, but in reality, aside from the last one which required his personal presence, he rarely had to step in.

As a result, Leian had a large amount of autonomous time to dedicate to cultivation.

And so, in just one month, Leian had successfully switched to practicing the "Destruction Codex." Now, both his refinement and recovery of battle energy were several times faster than before.

Feeling that he was in excellent condition, he prepared to fuse the level 9 magic core with the destruction attribute that very night.

As midnight approached, in a small courtyard built of bluestone in the center of the town, Leian sat cross-legged in the middle of his bedroom, silently adjusting his state.

On the floor in front of him lay two items: the Spring of Life and the level 9 magic core.

A moment later, Leian took a deep breath, grabbed the small emerald bottle, and drank the Spring of Life in one gulp. He then picked up the level 9 magic core, shoved it into his mouth without hesitation, and began to circulate his battle energy according to the secret technique recorded by the Cleo Family to refine the magic core.

Once the technique was activated, the hard magic core, under the erosion of his battle energy, immediately began to seep out strands of purple-black energy that burrowed into his body, flowing along his meridians throughout his entire being.

Wherever the purple-black energy traveled, his muscles and bone marrow felt as if they were being scorched by a furnace. Intense pain surged into his brain, and Leian's entire body began to spasm.

Pain—indescribable pain!

As the purple-black energy circulated to every corner of his body, Leian felt as if his limbs and bones, inside and out, were being sliced by countless knives.

This kind of pain was truly not something an ordinary person could endure. Although Elvis had already recorded it in the family genealogy, Leian couldn't help but curse inwardly.

Just as he was about to lose his ability to maintain the secret technique, a cooling sensation suddenly surged from his abdomen, beginning to flow through his meridians alongside the purple-black energy.

"It's the Spring of Life!"

Leian breathed a secret sigh of relief.

Sure enough, with the addition of the cooling sensation, the pain finally subsided quite a bit.

However, this relief did not last long. Before long, Leian felt the pain in his cheeks, neck, and hands and feet gradually begin to intensify, accompanied by an unbearable itching sensation.

Facing this change, Leian did not feel panicked. According to Elvis's records, this was a sign of the body undergoing beast-transformation.

Furthermore, because this was only the initial fusion of the Magic Core, his body would only undergo partial beast-transformation, and the process would be quite rapid, so there was no need to worry about being unable to endure it for a long time.

Just as Leian gritted his teeth and held on, the skin on his cheeks and neck began to be gradually covered by patches of purple-black dragon scales, and his hands and feet also began to slowly sharpen, transforming toward the shape of dragon claws.

He did not know how much time had passed, but when his four limbs had completely dragonified, the pain finally began to subside, and shortly after, Leian slowly opened his eyes.

At this moment, the Magic Core in his mouth had completely vanished, and above his dantian, a purple-black rhombic crystal was slowly rotating.

This rhombic crystal was the unrefined essence of the Magic Core; fusing with a Magic Core was a long process.

Only when Leian had completely refined this rhombic crystal would the fusion be considered truly complete.

As for the area below the rhombic crystal, that was where Leian's battle qi resided; at this moment, his battle qi had liquefied, and it had changed from pure black to purple-black, with its volume also increasing by several fractions, reaching the peak level of a seventh-rank warrior, looking as though it would not be long before he stepped into the eighth rank.

The change in his battle qi truly made Leian feel incredibly gratified; one had to know that this short moment had saved him years of hard work.

Leian felt that stepping into the Saint Realm was not a problem, but the time required was difficult to gauge; in his heart, what constrained him from entering the Saint Realm was never his level of comprehension, but the accumulation of battle qi.

Just like Linley, who had grasped the Worldly Momentum at the eighth rank and touched upon the Laws and Profound Mysteries at the ninth rank, yet it had taken him over three years to go from the seventh rank to the eighth rank in his human form, another five or six years from the eighth to the ninth, and over a dozen years to go from the ninth rank to the Saint Realm.

If it took such a long time for a powerful Dragonblood Warrior to accumulate battle qi, then what about him, born a commoner? He feared that this time would be even longer!

But now it was different; just from the initial fusion of the Magic Core, his battle qi had reached the peak of the seventh rank, which was equivalent to saving at least three to five years of time.

More importantly, as the fusion deepened, the essence within the rhombic crystal would continuously merge into his body, accelerating the accumulation of his battle qi.

This gave him the confidence to step into the ninth rank within five years.

After a bout of daydreaming, Leian finally remembered to observe the changes in his own body.

First, his hands had completely turned into dragon claws, with black scales covering them all the way up to his shoulders, connecting with the dragon scales on his neck.

Second, while his feet had not changed shape, all ten toes had become extremely sharp, like awls, and dragon scales also covered his lower legs.

As for his head, there was not much change; apart from his cheeks being covered in dragon scales, the biggest change was his pupils, which had turned completely purple, looking very cold and eerie. Additionally, both sides of his forehead were slightly raised, as if horns would grow there in the future.

After sensing his own condition once more and finding no discomfort, Leian deactivated the beast-transformation.

Having tossed and turned for most of the night, Leian lost the motivation to continue cultivating and simply lay down on the bed, slowly drifting off to sleep.